How Baleen Whales Sing Underwater須鯨如何在水下發(fā)聲

打開文本圖片集

Important clues into how whales are able to sing underwater have been found in a new study.

Professor Coen Elemans and other researchers at the University of Southern Denmark studied the larynges， or voice boxes， of three whales that had previously been stranded and died.

The whales were a humpback， a minke and a sei—three different types of baleen whales.

Baleen whales are different to other mammals because they don’t have vocal chords or teeth. Instead， they have a U-shaped tissue in their voice box that allows them to breathe in huge amounts of air. They also have a unique cushion of fat and muscle that isn’t found in other animals.

By blowing air through the voice boxes in the lab， the scientists were able to find out which parts of the voice box vibrated in order to produce sound. The researchers also created computer models of the sei whale’s songs and matched them to recordings of similar whales taken in the wild.

They concluded that baleen whales were able to sing by pushing the tissue against the fat and muscle cushion.

The findings were different to other studies that showed toothed whales， such as dolphins， orcas and sperm whales， sing by using a special organ in their nasal passages.

一項新的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)了鯨魚如何在水下發(fā)聲的重要線索。（剩余1879字）